Category: game development

Bungie last week announced their new expansion for Destiny, The Taken King, and in the process alienated another big chunk of their fanbase. The motivation for their behavior is obvious: to extract as much money as possible from paying customers in a desperate attempt to postpone the inevitable. But it’s getting to the point where even the most indoctrinated players are starting to feel exploited.

There’s a new editorial up today on Kotaku describing a man’s struggle with the disconnect between reality and the elaborate systems of extrinsic rewards we have used as the basis of so many things in our society. As Kotaku is a gaming news website, the role of video games in this process is of course mentioned.

On Wednesday the New York Times Magazine published a really interesting article that talks a little about gamification and a lot about specifically the type of games, often found on Facebook and mobile devices, that capitalize on the snippets of “free” time everyone has between doing other things. It’s definitely worth a read; go check it out.

More news sites are realizingtoday what the Scrolls trademark going to Zenimax means for Mojang. Of course, they still haven’t really said anything about how little sense the whole thing makes. I think Zenimax Media gets better treatment than Tim Langdell by gaming news sites just because it actually makes games people enjoy.

Am I the only one who doesn’t think thissettlement is goodnews? GamaSutra has a short article today pointing out the problem with this agreement, but in my opinion the problem is more fundamental than that: Zenimax never had any right to the Scrolls trademark.

If you hadn’t heard, Double Fine Productions is going to be making a new point-and-click adventure game with Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert headlining the team, funded entirely through a Kickstarter project which went live last night. It’s big news today: this is the fastest-funded Kickstarter project ever, and already the one with the most backers less than 24 hours since it went up. It even prompted the U.K. Interactive Entertainment trade group to start work on a report to persuade lawmakers in the U.K. to make adjustments to legally support this type of funding mechanism for game developers.

I’m reading the book Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, at the suggestion of Jonathan Blow. It’s incredibly interesting, and I think should be required reading for most adults. It is interesting for game design, but also for managers, teachers, parents, and I would think most other people.

Alan Tew made an interesting observation on his LittleBot Studios blog: that the plot of escaping enslavement lends itself especially well to the video game medium. This led me to wonder what other sorts of plots might also lend themselves well to the medium, and I decided to do my musing here. This will be more rambling than normal, since I’m basically writing my thoughts as they come…

Jonathan Blow recently gave a talk at Rice University about ethics in game design. It vocalizes well my opinions on the matter; I agree with all of it, basically. Even if you don’t agree with it, though, it should get you thinking. Check it out here.

I’ve been working on a game lately when I have time. It’s probably way too early to talk about but I’m going to say a little anyway. The title of the game is “This Celestial Life” and it’s sort of my take on the Japanese dating sim. It isn’t really about dating, though; it’s basically directly inspired by the non-combat portions of Persona 3.

There’s a new interview at Rock, Paper, Shotgun with Jack Emmert from Cryptic discussing the recently-announced game they’re working on, Neverwinter. I have a hunch that it will flop, with all the attendant consequences for Cryptic and Atari that implies. I could be completely wrong; it wouldn’t be the first time nor the last.